Media clips or media content are segments of audio media, video media, or audio/visual (AV) media and include information that is embodied, stored, transmitted, received, processed, or otherwise used with at least one medium. Common media clip formats include FLV format (flash video), Windows Media Video, RealMedia, Quicktime, MPEG, MP3, and DivX. As used herein, the terms “media clips”, “media content,” “information content,” and “content” may be used interchangeably.
Media clips may be defined with one or more images. For example, video media may be a combination of a set of temporally related frames or images at particular points in time of the video media. Additionally, audio media may be represented as one or more images using many different techniques known in the art. For example, audio information may be captured in a spectrogram. In the spectrogram, the horizontal axis can represent time, the vertical axis can represent frequency, and the amplitude of a particular frequency at a particular time can be represented in a third dimension. Further, in a two dimensional spectrogram, the amplitude may be represented with thicker lines, more intense colors or grey values. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that many different modifications to the above example and other representations may be used to represent an audio clip as an image.
Images that define media content (audio and/or video) may be associated with a corresponding fingerprint (“fingerprint” used interchangeably with and equivalent to “signature”). Some fingerprints of media content may be derived (e.g., extracted, generated) from information within, or which comprises a part of the media content. A media fingerprint embodies or captures an essence of the media content of the corresponding media and may be uniquely identified therewith. Video fingerprints are media fingerprints that may be derived from images or frames of a video clip. Audio fingerprints are media fingerprints that may be derived from images with embedded audio information (e.g., spectrograms). Further, the term media fingerprint may refer to a low bit rate representation of the media content with which they are associated and from which they are derived.
Fingerprints may be used to determine whether two media clips are identical or if a suspect media clip has been derived from the original media clip. In order to compare multiple media clips to make this determination, a fingerprint of each media clip may be derived, and thereafter the fingerprints may be compared.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section. Similarly, issues identified with respect to one or more approaches should not assume to have been recognized in any prior art on the basis of this section, unless otherwise indicated.